Did Slaves Build the Pyramids? Who Built the Pyramids? Were the pyramids built by slaves?

Who built the pyramids? The Great Pyramids of Egypt have maintained their mystery through the eons, and there’s still a lot we don’t know about them. But we do know this: slaves, particularly the ancient Hebrew slaves, did not build these grand structures.

It’s easy to see why people think slaves built the pyramids. Most ancient societies kept slaves, and the Egyptians were no exception. And Hebrew slaves did build other Egyptian monuments during their 400 years of captivity, according to the Old Testament. even ancient Scholars such as the Greek historian Herodotus, 5th Century BC, and the Jewish historian Josephus, 1st Century AD, believed that the Egyptians used slave labor in the construction of the pyramids.

Based on the lifestyles of these ancient Builders, however, researchers have discredited the notion that they were slaves ( Nubians, Assyrians, or Hebrews, among others) who were forced to work. They had more likely willingly labored, both for grain, or other foodstuffs, and to ensure their place in the afterlife. What’s more, we now know that the great pyramids were built more than a thousand years before the era of the Hebrews, who actually became enslaved during Egypt’s New Kingdom.

Archaeologists have determined that many of the people who built the pyramids were conscripted farmers and peasants who lived in the countryside during the Old Kingdom. Archaeologist Mark Lehner of the Semitic Museum at Harvard University has been studying the workers villages that existed close to the Giza plateau, where the pyramids were built. He has confirmed that the people who built the pyramids were not slaves. Rather they were skilled laborers, and ordinary men and women. The first recorded labor strike in history occurred during the construction of the Great Pyramids, when workers stopped building until their grain payments came through.

Today, there are still many arguments and alternative theories about why the pyramids were built, what was the purpose of the pyramids, were the pyramids really burial tombs, who built the pyramids, and of course, how the pyramids were built.